Abyss – The Loss of the Face

Edward Munch - The Kiss of Death

“If you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss will stare back at you”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Frank Auerbach - R.B. Kitaj

…the face is being absorbed into abstract space

Frank Auerbach - Helen Gillespie

…the abyss is swallowing the face

Max Beckmann - Stepping back from the Abyss

…a temporary regression, escape from the absolute emptiness

Francis Bacon - Head IV

…ascending screaming into black hell

Leon Kossof - Portrait of Phillip

….turning into mud

Klee - Embrace

… the embrace is another way out

Edward Munch - Death and Love

… but it could be the wrong one

Beheading of St John the Baptist – Ο αποκεφαλισμος του Βαπτιστη Ιωαννη

The itinerant John the Baptist has baptized Christ. In the Gospels, John announces the coming of Jesus and is therefore considered the “forerunner”. He died a cruel death by beheading. One of the variants of the story is that his death was the result of the wish of Herod’s stepdaughter, Salome.

There have been many renderings of the beheading of St John the Baptist by Salome.

In my view the best is the interpretation by the sublime brush of Caravaggio.

Salome looks away, although she is carrying the tray with the motionless head. The sword-man contemplates the fate of humans, while the servant observes in silence. This is a silent motionless picture full of tension.

There have also been a few “staged” photos. Frantisek Dritkol’s black and white photo shows an ecstatic Salome, delirious with joy, holding the head to her chest.

Finally, in prints Aubrey Beardsley’s depiction is minimal, but in my view highly effective.

Umayyad Mosque in Damascus Syria, built on the Christian Basilica dedicated to St John the Baptist, is one of the places claiming to have St John’s head.

Umayyad Mosque: St John's Shrine

The mosque holds a shrine which still today may contain the head of John the Baptist(Yahya), honored as a prophet by both Christians and Muslims alike. (Source wikipedia).

There is no better end to such a quick tour of the macabre end to the story, than Salome’s dance as interpreted by Karita Mattila. to the music of Richard Strauss’s opera “Salome”.

The opera is based on a the Oscar Wilde’s play “Salome”.

“In Salome, Oscar Wilde expresses a dangerous relationship between sight and sexual desire that leads to death.  The play depicts a night in a royal court on which Herod, the Tetrarch of Judea, and his wife, Herodias, hold a dinner party for some Jewish officials.  Herodias’s daughter Salome leaves the party and occupies the terrace, where she attracts the gaze of other male characters, while she herself becomes attracted to the prophet, Iokanaan.  Her carnal desire for Iokanaan leads to his beheading, an act that brings her sexual gratification and leads her to kiss the lips of his severed head.  Similarly, Herod comes to desire his step-daughter Salome, and, after persuading her to dance a highly sexualized dance, he is disgusted when she kisses Iokanaan’s lips and orders his soldiers to kill her.”

More on the play in the excellent article by Leland Tabares, which is the source of the above summary.

Birgit Nilsson as Salome

“A scherzo with a fatal conclusion” was Richard Strauss’ own tongue-in-cheek description of Salome. Upon hearing the freshly composed score played at the keyboard, his father—a famous musician himself—declared that it conjured the feeling of countless bugs crawling inside his pants. (From Washington National Opera’s feature article on Salome).

Cy Twombly: The Rose

Cy Twombly is today one of my favorite living painters. He is an American, living in Europe and USA, and I must confess that I was not very impressed by his work, until I visited a year ago the Bandohrst Museum in Munich, Bavaria, where a lot of his paintings are exhibited, along with a few of his sculptures.

In the Brandhorst there is a room with huge canvases depicting roses. It is these pictures that started the process of my reconsideration of Twombly’s work.

Cy Twombly

The paintings in the Brandhorst are untitled, with the word “Roses” in parenthesis following the untitled.

The artist has produced another series of Roses paintings, this time with the relevant title. They were exhibited in the Gagosian Gallery in London in early 2009, with the title “The Rose”.

Untitled (Roses) – Brandhorst Museum, Munich

This is a set of five large panels, with the painter having scribbled over the paint fragments from Rainer Maria Rilke’s poems in the “Les Roses” cycle.

Titian and Twombly: the most youthful of old masters (Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, February 2009)

VI
One rose alone is all roses
and this one: irreplaceable,
perfect, the supple term
surrounded by the text of things.
How, without her and her
intermittent and continual springing forth,
could we ever express
what were our hopes.
The Rose – Gagosian Gallery

VII

Pressing you, fresh bright rose,

against my eyelid closed—

one might say a thousand

superimposed

against my warm one.

A thousand nights’ sleep

against my one pretended sleep

in which I roam

through the scented labyrinth.

The Rose (Detail)

Rose (Rilke’s epitaph)

Rose, oh pure contradiction, delight
of being no one’s sleep under so
many lids

Untitled (Roses) – Brandhorst Museum

IX

Rose, so ardent and so bright

that one should call her

Saint Rose’s Reliquary…,

rose that emits this troubling scent of naked saint.

Rose nevermore tempted, disconcerting

for its internal peace; ultimate lover

so far removed from Eve, from her first awareness—

rose that infinitely possesses the loss.

I was not the only one who was and still is (even more) enthusiastic about Twombly’s work after having seen the rose, titled or untitled.

The quote from the Guardian is indicative.

Twombly is up there, with the old masters!

His hands work the paint, press it against the canvas, the sensation of the whole work is as important as the felling you get from the most minute details.

We are talking about a color master who takes us back to the Venetian School.

Abstract Expressionism comes of age and in a cyclical never ending, almost spiral pattern, joins up with Titian!

The feeling of liberation is immense.

The huge canvases absorb the vicissitudes of the world, filter out the bad stuff and exhume only the aroma of the essence of life.

La vie en rose.

Merci Mr. Twombly.

Wings of desire – Der Himmel uber Berlin – A film by Wim Wenders (1987)

From the sea of Paros to the sky over Berlin!

Today I want to reminisce on the wonderful film “Wings of desire”, made in 1987 by Wim Wenders.

The title in German is “The sky over Berlin”, whereas for unknown reasons the title in English is the corny “Wings of Desire”.

The story is simple like a fairy tale. Two Angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sanders), go around Berlin listening to what people are saying, stand on high places and statues, medidate, think about the past. Ordinary humans cannot see them, nor can they hear them speak.

 This film is shot in black/white and color. The Angels cannot see color. Therefore, when the shot is from the angels’ point of view, the shot is black and white (with a blue tint), and when the shot is from a human point of view, it is in color.

Bruno Ganz

Damiel’s wanderings lead him to a small circus, where he meets Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a trapeze artist. Talented and lovely, Marion is also angst-ridden and profoundly lonely. She confines herself to her trailer after performances, dances alone to the live music of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and drifts through the city, trying to fulfill her “desire for love, desire to love.” Yet she fails to connect with anyone.

Solweig Dommartin

Apparently, angels have similar existential problems. Being eternal, Damiel has neither a beginning nor an end, and therefore lacks definition. He wants the simple pleasures of a finite existence: to feed a cat, enjoy a meal, tell a lie.

Divinity has its purpose, but as Peter Falk, playing himself as a former angel, informs Damiel, there is nothing to compare to the sensations of the finite. Falk became famous in the US with his portrayal of Detectiv Columbo, the absent minded naive but very efficient police crime detective.

Falk’s role also connects the film to history. He’s come to Berlin to make a movie about a private detective in WWII, and extras stand around on the set wearing Nazi uniforms and clothes marked with the Star of David. The past is alive and well within the city, and old newsreel footage is cut into Wings of Desire, seen from car windows, the ghost of memory. It’s another division between realms, one of many in the movie. Wim Wenders and cinematographer Henri Alekan (Topkapi), along with assistant director Claire Denis, create a vivid visual division between the heavenly and the earthly.

The angels and what they see are shot in crisp, cool black-and-white (restored here to a more silvery hue rather than the gold of previous DVDs) while the mortal experience is shown to us in full color, rich in tone and often garish. Humanity experiences the full spectrum, whereas the angels’ vision is limited. For all of their peeping in on our brains, the angels are confined. They can’t do anything else. This is the core of existentialism: choice is what makes us free. Our imperfections define us. The brightest light burns half as long.

At another level, Wings of Desire is about a world divided, about the line between the spiritual and the physical, the fanciful and the practical. Between the poetry of words and thought and the true poetry of life.

The screen play is written by Peter Handlke, the Austrian poet and play write. I came to know his work with “The fear of the goalie before the penalty kick”, and then with “Kaspar Hauser”.

Peter Handke

In addition to the script, he wrote the poem “Song of Childhood” for the movie. Here is an excerpt:

“When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?”

 

THE END

 

Panathinaeos Paintings IIb: Three Female Nudes for a quite Sunday evening – Updated June 2013

Today I present to you three of the  female nudes I painted over the last few years. The choice of subject was triggered by a wave of exhibitions on the nude (Nestorideion in Rhodes, Fryssira in Athens).

I start with “Red Sand”, a picture that belongs to Sahara, to the vast emptiness, to the deep contrasts. The girl is Italian, her name Antonella. She is resting after a long day, contemplating the green horizon. She covers with her body a rose given to her by her lover, who is due to arrive at any moment. the anticipation of his arrival fills the young body with adrenalin and joy. Emptiness is temporary.

Red Sand

Red Sand

Width: 100 cm Height: 60cm

Materials: Oil on canvas

In my personal collection

The second picture belongs to the 19th century. The woman in the picture, is proudly announcing to us that Khalil Bey likes her. Her name is Leila and she comes from Iran. She is resting on the pier of the main port of the island of Chios. Bodrum (Halicarnassus) is seen in the background. Khalil Bei is returning to Chios from his trip to Bodrum and Leila is full of expectations. She announces to the world that Khalil Bey likes her and in a sense anticipates that the art patron will take her with him back to Paris.

Khalil Bey likes me

Khalil Bey likes me

Width: 120 cm Height: 60cm

Materials: Acrylic on canvas

In my personal collection

Khalil Bey was a Turkish diplomat in Paris in the second half of the 19th century. He was an avid collector, and he owned “The source of Life”, the famous Courbet painting that was prohibited from public view, was acquired by Lacan, to end up in one of the bathrooms of his house.

The third picture is a picture of longing. A young woman is naked and watches out from a window.

Alicia

Alicia

Width: 80 cm Height: 100cm

Materials: Oil on canvas

In private collection

Her name is Alicia and the place is the Spanish port of Ferrol, in the Atlantic. She is married to Pedro, a military naval officer, currently on a mission to Argentina. She goes naked to the window everyday, as Pedro is for a few seconds becoming wind and comes to touch and caress her.

Maria Callas Memory: 16th September 1977

Maria Callas left this world on the 16th September 1977.

On this occasion, I want to share with you a masterclass she gave at the Julliard School of Music in New York City  in 1971-1972. The particular interest of this is that Callas is teaching the singing of Rigoletto’a aria “Cortigiani vil razza dannata”. I remind that Rigoletto is a baritone role!

La Dolce Vita – Fellini's Masterpiece

“The film first impinged on the world at large in February 1960 when foreign journalists reported back to their readers, listeners and viewers on the controversial reception in Italy, where it divided audiences, critics and clerics, and led to Fellini being both spat on and cheered at the Milan premiere.” (Source: Philip French’s film review in the Guardian)

“Jesus Christ swings over Rome in a breathtaking opening sequence; a statue suspended from a helicopter where Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) beckons to a gaggle of sunbathing beauties below. He’s a spiritually bankrupt man who pushes girlfriend Emma (Yvonne Furneaux) to the brink of suicide with his incessant philandering. Nonetheless he cannot resist ‘the sweet life’ of sex and partying, seductively embodied by Hollywood movie star Sylvia – a voluptuous Anita Ekberg framed like a goddess as she cavorts in the Trevi Fountain.” (Source: Stella Papamichael’s film review in the BBC)

The Fontana di Trevi scene.

And the unforgettable music of Nino Rota.

“It was I who made Fellini famous, not the other way around”. (Anita Ekberg)

Ekberg is quoted (in a TV interview) as saying “Mrcello was zero when I met him, I made him famous!”.

No matter what the real case is, both Marcello and Anita are beautiful and doomed in this movie.

“La Dolce Vita”  is actually a bittersweet life, with the bitter taste ever present, not letting the sweet enjoy a victory. Marcello never really gets around to the sweet comfort of victory or pleasure. He is always chasing, something elusive, without being able to actually experience something, as the object of experience is continuously fragmented and disjointed.

Fellini has described La Dolce Vita as “a journey through the inauthentic” (in Federico Fellini’s Autobiography, a documentary by Paquito del Bosco available on the Criterion Collection DVD, La Strada). The film displays an almost palpable anxiety over the question of distinguishing the authentic from the inauthentic, the real from the simulated; and it is because of Marcello’s inability to make reliable distinctions between these categories that the film steadily moves towards a sense of chaos and disorder. The pervasive superficiality and artificiality of the characters Marcello encounters suggest a psychology in which identity is always concealed behind a social mask, and masquerade and performance have become the key elements of self. Such a view of human psychology inevitably forces us to confront the irreducible distance between self and other, a distance that is most often represented by Fellini as a breakdown of human communication. …. La Dolce Vita is a dense, complex portrait of modern life; a scathing critique of media culture, of its artificiality and sensationalism, its squandering of social energy in pursuit of the trivial, its insatiable appetite for scandal and the thrill of “the new. And it is equally an analysis of the “modern” self, of the narcissism and vanity that underlie sexual desire and which inhibit any meaningful communication between human beings. La Dolce Vita is about the emotional and spiritual cost of embracing such values. And it is also an expression of Fellini’s own anxieties as an artist, his concern that as a filmmaker he is like Marcello, a chronicler of the trivial and the unimportant. The crisis in Fellini’s conception of himself as an artist and filmmaker would find its fullest fictional treatment in his next solo film, 8 1/2. (Source:  Fellini’s Roman Circus)

At the end, he encounters again the beautiful young girl from a little cafe he met earlier.  A profile like an angel.  She beckons to him, but he can’t hear her across the waves.  He goes back to his degenerate orgiasts who are leaving the beach where they were gawking at an enormous “sea monster” the fishermen brought in.  Might there be a shred of hope left for him? (Source: Journey to perplexity)

Marcello cannot hear what the angel figure across the beach of Fregena is telling him He knows very well that he is not going to stay there, that he is going to go. He will walk away from his only chance to redeem himself. Redemption appeared before him and he turns it away. Marcello actually watches his redemption ticket being burned.

La Dolce Vita is a big puzzle with a simple end, that there is an end, sooner or later, and there are only limited choices that appear in front of us.  The choices we make and the end are intertwined.

We talk a lot about the end. The personal end, as I cannot foretell or describe the end of the world or the universe, should there ever be such an event. What is the personal end? I do not know, I have not experienced it yet. But I have a picture of it in my mind, it is the circus characters’ band walking on the beach at sunset, when the daylight gives its place to the darkness of the night. (the photo is from Fellini’s 8 1/2).

Painting the Human Body and Flesh

Back in 1995 I visited an exhibition of the late period Degas in the National Gallery of London. Among the works, were many with naked distorted female bodies bathing, drying themselves, combing their hair. At first it looked like the result of compulsive voyeurism of the aging artist. After having a second look, my view changed. these were not simple paintings. They were odes to the female body, poems without verses, songs without sound. The Degas pictures were wonderful sonatas, chamber music to introduce me to the complex world of painting the flesh.

The gigantic canvases where Cezanne depicted his bathers, came next in my journey of discovery of paintings depicting the body and the flesh. After the Degas chamber music, the time came for the symphony. Degas dresses his pictures with warmth and caress. The Cezanne bathers are bronze-like, and almost clumsy. These figures are not feminine in the sense that Degas’s are. In a sense they are naked Amazones, ready to fight. Some have called Cezanne’s bathers a reflection of his misoginy.

Any reference to Cezanne’s Bathers would be incomplete without the “Three Bathers”, which is the ultimate statement made by Cezanne regarding the female body and the flesh. A statement that expresses his complete lack of appreciation of the female body, in the sense that one cannot see even a fragment of passion in the endless surfaces of female flesh he put on the canvas.

The three figures are seen in a night scene, bathed in the moonlight, neglecting any bystander, focusing on their leisure and relaxation. Again there is no sign of femininity, nor of sexual appeal. The solid figures have nothing to do with the academic ideal, they are closer to ordinary working women, seen from a distance, as animals grazing the zoo’s grass.

Matisse loved women. His “Three bathers and a turtle” display his passion and love for the female body. It is like a hymn to the woman, prior to his painting the “Joy of life”.

The joy of life of radiant Mediterranean colours gives its place to the introspection of Central Europe and the tension of Expressionism.

The contours of the body are shores containing the waves of passion and desire.

The European North in the face of Munch makes the body a continent of rivers, lakes, mountains.

Lucian Freud, the grand child of Sigmund, brings the earth on the body, makes it a fertile field.

Francis Bacon makes the body a field of horrors. Deformation, dicease, decasy, and ultimately Death inhabit the canvas.

Jenny Saville paints herself and her sister as twins, and the canvas erupts with color gradations.

Saville’s self portrait is a scream. Her flesh melts like ice cream, it floats on dirty air.

David Hockney’s Teressa is a collage that invites us to rethink the space and the body.

It is time for the spirit and the bodies of the women already depicted to exit the scene. No other than Marel Duchamp is directing their grand exit down the stairs.

Images of Theotokos, the Mother of God – From North to South

Today we are celebrating the Dormition of the Mother of God, Theotokos, and I want to share with you some of my favorite images of Her.  I will start from the North of Europe, and the turn from Gothic to Early Renaissance. The direction is from North to South.

The North begins with Jan van Eyck, the Master who opened the way for the rejuvenation of art in the north, for the decisive transition from the Gothic to the Renaissance. His influence is visible in the works of all the Masters who succeeded him.

Jan van Eyck: Lucca Madonna c. 1430

Rogier van der Weyden was an Old Master who following the lead of van Eyck, pioneers Early Renaissance in Northern Europe (second half of 15th century).

Rogier van der Weyden: Head of the Virgin, c. 1440

This extraordinary study of the head of the Virgin is one of very few surviving drawings that can be attributed with any certainty to the early Flemish masters, and one of an even smaller number of drawings with a generally accepted attribution to Rogier van der Weyden. Its extreme sobriety and intensity of expression are utterly characteristic of van der Weyden’s work.

Source: Louvre Museum, Prints and Drawings, Head of the Virgin

Rogier van der Weyden: Madonna and Child c. 1460

Martin Schongauer was a follower of van der Weyden and a superb engraver. He was born and worked in the town of Colmar in Alsace.  The Madonna in a Rose Garden is his masterpiece. It can be seen in the Dominican Church, in Colmar.

Martin Schongauer: Mary in a Rose Garden

Matthias Gruenewald was one of Schongauer’s students. His masterpiece is the Isenheim Altarpiece, to which I have dedicated a separate post. In this post I want to present another of his major works, the Stuppach Madonna.

Around 6 km/4 miles from Bad Mergentheim’s old town in the suburb Stuppach is a small, unremarkable chapel that houses a remarkable painting, the Stuppacher Madonna. This painting of Mary with Child was removed from the Maria Schnee Kapelle in Aschaffenburg during the 1525 Peasants’ War. It remained in the hands of the Teutonic Order until it came to this chapel in 1812.The Stuppacher Madonna was long thought to be the work of Rubens. Only in 1908 was it recognized as one of the pieces from the Marienaltar (Mary Altar) and the 1519 work of the great German Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald. (A second piece of the altar is in Freiburg, while Aschaffenburg only has copies.)

Source: European Traveller, Top Sights in Bad Merghentheim

Matthias Gruenewald: Stuppacher Madonna

And in order to remember the Isenheim Altarpiece, here is a detail from the Nativity panel.

Matthias Gruenewald: Madonna and Child, detail from the Nativity panel

We are now going south, to meet the Italian Masters, and a Greek who became Spanish.

I begin with Lorenzo Monaco, whose brilliant colors make him one of the pioneers of Renaissance in Italy. See in the picture below how wonderfully the pink becomes the dominant color of the picture, eliminating the black. The picture is practically flat, maintaining in this respect the Byzantine tradition.

Lorenzo Monaco: Virgin and Child on the Throne with Six Angels c.1415-1420

Giovanni Bellini, the Venetian Master, with his solemn Madonna is next. I love the use of green in the painting, it becomes the center of the harmonies and works superbly with the pale blue of the sky and the ultramarine of Madonna’s dress.

Giovanni Bellini: Madonna degli Alberetti c. 1487

Young Rafaello, with his Madonna del Granduca, gives us a masterpiece in the study of black. In this he anticipates Caravaggio and chiaroscuro.

Rafaello: Madonna del Granduca c.1505

Titian, turns the tables and presents a dark haired pale woman as his Madonna, named the  Gypsy Madonna. She is like a an ordinary girl carrying a huge burden. You notice the green curtain in the background, tribute to Giovanni Bellini.

Titian: The Gypsy Madonna c. 1515

Rafaello a few years later gave us the Madonna of the Chair, a much more vivid and “alive” painting, where the faces almost jump out of the canvas to reach us.

Rafaello: Madonna of the Chair c. 1518

El Greco, the Greek, Dominikos Theotokopoulos, started his life in Crete, and via Venice ended in Toledo, Spain.

El Greco: Virgin and Child with St Martina and St Agnes, 1597-9

El Greco lifts us up in the skies and the clouds and the greyness of the storm that is about to come.  El Greco does not use the domestic environment used by the other artists. He belongs in the sky, and this is what he paints.

El Greco: Immaculate Conception with St John the Evangelist

Back to where it all started. the most fitting end of all.

We traveled from the North to the South, from the Earth to the Skies, from the simple, ordinary faces of everyday women, to the incredibly beautiful faces of sheer perfection. Next trip will be from the West to the East.

Nikos Gabriel Pentzikis – Νικος Γαβριηλ Πεντζικης

This is a tribute to the great Greek Writer and Painter, Niko Gabriel Pentzikis. He was born and lived almost all his life in the city of Thessaloniki in the north of Greece.

Σημερα τιμω τον μεγαλο Ελληνα Συγγραφεα και Ζωγραφο, το Νικο Γαβριηλ Πεντζικη.

Ο Πεντζικης γενηθηκε και εζησε στη Θεσσαλονικη.

Ν. Γ. Πεντζικης: Ο Μυχος του Κολπου της Θεσσαλονικης

Most critics classify him as a member of the “30’s Generation” group of Greek Writers and Artists, who developed the concept of “being Greek” in a modern 20th century context. In my view, Pentzikis stands somewhere by himself, pure and authentic, a visionary and a mystic at the same time,  a lover and believer in the internal dialogue.

Τον εντασσουν στη γενια του 30, ομως για μενα στεκει καπου μοναχος του, ολοκαθαρος και αυθεντικος, ενας οραματιστης και μυστικιστης ταυτοχρονα, ενας μυστης του εσωτερικου διαλογου.

His paintings are equally important with his writings. Many times he comes to my mind as the “Paul Klee of the European East”.

Οι ζωγραφιες του ειναι εξ ισου σημαντικες με το συγγραφικο του εργο. Πολλες φορες τον φερνω στο νου μου  σαν τον Παουλ Κλε της Ανατολης.

“My Saviour, I see your House in all of its glory, but I have no proper clothes in order to enter it. You, the Bearer of Light, enlighten the armoury of my Soul, and Save me! ”

«Τὸν νυμφῶνά σου βλέπω, Σωτήρ μου, κεκοσμημένον καὶ ἔνδυμα οὐκ ἔχω, ἵνα εἰσέλθω ἐν αὐτῷ· λάμπρυνόν μου τὴν στολὴν τῆς ψυχῆς, Φωτοδότα καὶ σῶσόν με». Ἱερὰ Σύνοψη

Ν. Γ. Πεντζικης: Ο κηπος μας στην Θεσσαλονικη

“The good news always hide their presence.”

The Novel of Mrs. Ersi

«Τα καλά μαντάτα αποκρύβουνε την παρουσία τους»

Το Μυθιστορημα της κυριας Ερσης

Life for Pentzikis is a study of death with Platonic touches. The humanistic ego follows and coincides with a global cosmos. The deeper meaning of existence inhabits the root of love.

(Source: Article of Athina Schina in Eleftherotypia.)

Η ζωή για τον Ν.Γ. Πεντζίκη είναι μιας πλατωνικής απόχρωσης, σπουδή θανάτου, όπου όμως, στη συνέχεια, το ουμανιστικό εγώ ακολουθεί και ταυτίζεται με τη συμπαντικής σύλληψης φυσική νομοτέλεια. Το βαθύτερο νόημα της ύπαρξης εγκατοικεί στη ρίζα της αγάπης. Μιας αγάπης ενεργητικής και διαδραστικής, μέσω της οποίας διαστέλλεται το εγώ, προκειμένου να επιτευχθεί η πραγματογνωστική του μεταμόρφωση και η μετατροπή της υποκειμενικότητας στην ανασυγκρότησή της, ως «ετέρα μορφή». Η πορεία προς το θάνατο γίνεται άσκηση αναγέννησης και παγανιστικής σχεδόν παλιγγενεσίας, της οποίας η αιτιότητα αποκτά μια εσχατολογική δυναμική, μέσα από μια διάσταση ανακυκλωτικού χρόνου, αδιάλειπτης ενδοσκόπησης και εσωτερικής προοπτικής. Το παρελθόν διαπλέκεται με το παρόν, μέσα από μια αποδιαρθρωτική συνοχή, με στόχο τη συνεχή απέκδυση κάθε ατομικής ιδιαιτερότητας, για τη συγκρότηση ενός συμπαντικού «προσώπου», μιας κοσμογονικής persona, όπου αφηγητής, ήρωας και συγγραφέας ταυτίζονται ή εναλλάσσονται κάτω από τον ίδιο παρονομαστή. Τα πρόσωπα και τα πράγματα, οι μεταφορές και οι αλληγορίες, οι σχέσεις και οι συνειρμοί, ο φυσικός και ο μεταφυσικός ορίζοντας γίνονται σύστοιχα αντικείμενα και η μορφή, κατ’ αυτήν την έννοια, γίνεται σχήμα, κέλυφος ζωοδότησης μιας «αναστάσιμης», λυτρωτικής ουσίας, που αποκαθηλώνει το στιγμιαίο γεγονός προσδίδοντάς του μνημειακή διάρκεια.

(Πηγη: Αρθρο της Αθηνας Σχινα στην Ελευθεροτυπια)

Ν. Γ. Πεντζικης: Η κηδεια του Ιδομενεως

Τὰ ἄνευ οὐδενὸς περιεχομένου γεγυμνωμένα ὀστᾶ τοῦ πατέρα μου, ποὺ ξεθάψαμε κατὰ τὴν ἀνακομιδή, ἐν Χριστῷ ἐνδύονται φῶς ζωῆς. Ζοῦν οἱ προσφιλεῖς ὑπάρξεις, ποὺ καμιὰ λογικὴ ἀνάλυση καὶ ψυχολογία δὲ μπορεῖ νὰ τὶς ἀναστήσει. «Ἀδελφοί, οὐ θέλω ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν περὶ τῶν κεκοιμημένων, ἵνα μὴ λυπῆσθε καθὼς καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ οἱ μὴ ἔχοντες ἐλπίδα»

(Πηγη: Ν.Γ. Πεντζίκης – Ἔρως τῆς Ἐκκλησίας)

…Στον “Πεθαμένο και ανάσταση”, το απαλλοτριωμένο και νεκρό εγώ ανασταίνεται χάρις σε στοιχεία επαφής με τον τόπο…. (αποσπασμα απο αυτοβιογραφικο κειμενο).

Ν. Γ. Πεντζικης: Ιχθυς και Περσεφονη

«Aγωνίζομαι να συμπεριλάβω ασήμαντες

λεπτομέρειες που σημείωσα, γιατί μονο έτσι

καταλαβαίνω οτι μπορεί να λάβει κάποια ενοτητα
η κομματιασμένη απο τις καθημερινές αντιστάσεις ύπαρξη».
«O Πεθαμένος και η Aνάσταση»
Ν. Γ. Πεντζικης: Λειτουργια στο Πρωτατο

“O Nίκος Γαβριήλ Πεντζίκης ταυτίστηκε με τη «μητέρα Θεσσαλονίκη», αλλά γοητεύτηκε απο το «άχροον θαύμα» του Aγίου Oρους. Oι δεκάδες επισκέψεις του στην Aθωνική Πολιτεία τροφοδοτούσαν τον πνευματικο του κοσμο, τη βαθιά του πίστη στην Oρθοδοξία, που εκρφράζεται στα συγγραφικα και εικαστικα του έργα.” (Πηγη: Αφιερωμα της Καθημερινης).

Ν. Γ. Πεντζικης: Μητερα και Τεκνο

Και σε αυτό το αφιέρωμα πολύτιμη μαρτυρία για την πολυδιάστατη προσωπικότητα του Ν. Γ. Πεντζίκη δίνει ο επί 54 χρόνια «μαθητής» του, Κάρολος Τσίζεκ. Οταν πρωτογνωρίστηκαν ήταν εκείνος 31 και ο Τσίζεκ 17 ετών. Το κείμενο του Κ. Τσίζεκ καταλήγει με μια παρατήρηση που νομίζουμε πως απαιτεί βαθιά συλλογή: «… μια διαφορά, που προκύπτει από τη σύγκριση μιας προσωπικότητας σαν του Πεντζίκη (ή σαν του, έστω και τόσο διαφορετικού, φίλου του Στρατή Δούκα) με την αντίληψη που επικρατεί σήμερα για τον λογοτέχνη, τον καλλιτέχνη και τον πνευματικό άνθρωπο γενικά, είναι ότι εξέλιπε η επιδίωξη μιας πνευματικής τελείωσης… Σήμερα η δημόσια προβολή και η εμπορική επιτυχία έχουν υποκαταστήσει την άσκηση, που αδιαφορώντας για τα παραπάνω έχει ως αποκλειστικό σκοπό τη βελτίωση του εαυτού μας, την ανύψωση της πνευματικής μας στάθμης και την ποιοτική τελείωση του έργου μας…».

(Διαβάστε περισσότερα: http://www.tovima.gr/default.asp?pid=46&ct=47&artid=105967&dt=04/06/2000#ixzz0w2kT2GSM)

Ν. Γ. Πεντζικης: Νεα Σικιωνη και φεγγαρι

Μια νεροποντή με αστραπές, βροντές κι έναν κεραυνό που έπεσε σ’ ένα από τα σπίτια, μας παγίδεψε για λίγες μέρες στη Νέα Σκιώνη, στο τέλος εκείνου του καλοκαιριού. Οι χωματόδρομοι είχαν γίνει αδιάβατοι. Οι βροχές αποκάλυπταν συχνά στα οργωμένα χωράφια αρχαία νομίσματα, ανατιμημένα από τους αιώνες στο πολλαπλάσιο της ονομαστικής τους αξίας. Η γλυκιά και φτωχή γη της Κασσάνδρας έμοιαζε με τεράστιο καρβέλι ζυμωμένο με πανάρχαιο προζύμι. Το φυσικό και ιστορικό περιβάλλον ήταν για τον Πεντζίκη ένα ανοιχτό βιβλίο. Γι’ αυτό και η συναναστροφή μαζί του, οι ατελείωτες περιπλανήσεις μας και οι συζητήσεις που πάντα καταλήγανε σ’ έναν δικό του μονόλογο, που στην Κασσάνδρα μετριούνταν και με διανυόμενα χιλιόμετρα, με πλούτιζε αφάνταστα. Η καθημερινότητα αποκτούσε μια μεταφυσική διάσταση, που χωρίς αυτήν η ζωή, κυρίως ιδωμένη από το τέλος της, περιορίζεται σ’ ένα άθροισμα περιστατικών που μάταια αναζητάει κανείς το νόημά τους.
(Πηγη: Αρθρο του Καρολου Τσιζεκ στην Ελευθεροτυπια)

Ν. Γ. Πεντζικης: Μονη/Σπιτι, ψαρια, πουλια, τετραποδο